Ready for Eddie

Eddie Jones was in great form on Monday night at the Rugby Writers Awards in London. He sat alongside Jason Leonard, Brett Gosper and Bill Beaumont. He did a very upbeat discussion with Al Eykyn, describing his adventures in a Brighton Pub with the Japanese Team. This provided an insight into his style but what about the England team.

Eddie told us that set piece and defence were cornerstones of a winning team and he kept mentioning winning. His other point was to outline how to attack and he used the word adaptive.

The EPS squad announcement today is important for fans and players alike. Effectively he is able to introduce up to 11 new names – the expectation is these new names will be selected on current form. Names being circulated overnight include Hill ( is it Sam at Exeter or Paul at Northampton? ), Sale’s Josh Beaumont and Harlequins, Jack Clifford.

The aforementioned Al Eykyn tweeted on Tuesday night; “some very disappointed seasoned England internationals kicking the cat this evening”

So we have been ready for Eddie for several weeks and his announcement this afternoon included confirmation that he had selected both Hills -

New Boys:

Beaumont, Clifford, Itoje, Hill, Hill, Devoto, Daly

Need for Speed:

Yarde, Ashton

Experience Counts:

Robshaw, Marler, Cole

Leadership:

Hartley, Robshaw

Kicking the Cat:

Tom Youngs, Ben Morgan

The Squad

Hookers:

1Jamie George, 2Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3Dylan Hartley

Props:

4Joe Marler, 5Dan Cole, 6Matt Mullan, 7Mako Vunipola, 8Paul Hill, 9Henry Thomas

2^nd Row:

10George Kruis, 11Joe Launchbury, 12Courtney Lawes

Back Row:

13James Haskell, 14Maro Itoje, 15Matt Kvesic, 16Jack Clifford, 17Chris Robshaw, 18Billy Vunipola, 19Josh Beaumont

Scrum Halves:

20Danny Care, 21Ben Youngs

Fly Half:

22Owen Farrell, 23George Ford

Centres:

24Ollie Devoto, 25Elliott Daly, 26Sam Hill. 27Jonathan Joseph

Wings:

28Chris Ashton, 29Marlon Yarde, 30Jack Nowell, 31Anthony Watson

Full Backs:

32Mike Brown, 33Alex Goode